Influence of Personal, Environmental, and Community Factors on Cigarette Smoking in Adolescents: A Population-Based Study from Taiwan

Understanding the factors that influence cigarette smoking among adolescents is critical. We identified personal, community, and environmental factors associated with current cigarette smoking among adolescents. This population-based cross-sectional analysis study was conducted using the 2012 Taiwan Global Youth Tobacco Survey and the sociodemographic statistics of the city or county from Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior. A total of 27,524 participants (age: 12–18-years) was included. The associated factors were identified through logistic regression. A path analysis was performed to examine the pathway from the associated factors to current cigarette smoking. According to this analysis, the following factors were prominently and positively associated with adolescent cigarette smoking: one personal factor (pocket money), five environmental factors (home secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure, smoker friends, outside SHS exposure, school SHS exposure, and smoker parents), and two community factors (free cigarettes from tobacco companies and indigenous population). By contrast, five personal factors (feeling less comfortable smoking at social occasions, feeling indifferent about smoking or not smoking at social occasions, female sex, feeling that quitting is difficult, and feeling that quitting after having smoked is harmful to health) and one environmental factor (school antismoking education) had negative effects. Thus, comprehensive interventions promoting the perception of harm caused by smoking and interrupting access to cigarettes through social networks can reduce cigarette smoking in adolescents.